The above video is a bit different than my usual walking in cities video in that it is a night walk. He starts out in side streets and alleys, walks through a small and busy commercial area and ends up on quieter streets again. It is a long video and about half way through he enters what I think is a park. It is pretty dark in that portion of the video, so you may want to skip forward through parts of that.
As an aside, I have my own walking in Taipei at night story. Something they used to wash the sheets in the hotel I was staying in disagreed with me and my entire body turned into one giant itch. To get as far away from the cursed sheets as I could I went out for a walk.
One of my markers for how safe an unfamiliar neighborhood is how many women are out and about. Well, as long as they're not the sort of young ladies that dress trashy and ask sailors if they want a good time if you know what I mean, and I think that you do. Although my walk was later than the video walk, there were still a fair number of women unconcerned to be out alone. In fact, I would hazard they were more apprehensive at the sight of a hairy, big nosed barbarian emerging from the shadows than I was over anyone I encountered or anything I saw.
Taipei used to have walls and I read in a guidebook that all that was left of them was a single gate. It was near my hotel, or at least from looking at the map I thought it was near. It took a bit of walking, and getting lost now and again, but eventually I found it. That's it below as seen in the daylight. Altogether it was a pleasant walk -- certainly more pleasant than those itch infested sheets.
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| Taipei's North Wall Gate |
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